


Cracked Clay

by fireflysglow_archivist



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-29
Updated: 2003-10-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 13:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14473917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflysglow_archivist/pseuds/fireflysglow_archivist
Summary: River POV Freewrite.





	Cracked Clay

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).

 

Cracked Clay

## Cracked Clay

### by writingpathways

I'm culpable. I do it too, feel and know things that I never put into words. They aren't lies but they aren't true. I don't know what they are but they aren't the real me and it's rare I can speak those emotions and relax my muscles. It's the same for them all. All of them, moving about this place, doing their jobs, living their lives and not being whole. 

Not one of us is whole. All of us broken. Some of us broken more than others, I'm broken the most. Scarred externally and internally, made different and able to see. See the things that have no words. Gauzy strings of tears and smiles. The vaporous feelings that reveal the souls around me for what and who they truly are. A mixture of happy and sad, the past and present raining together into a puddle and creating a muddy mixture. Too many things go into the mud, things that won't dissolve, things that don't belong among the darkness, or things that should never be near light. 

Yet it's all there, in all of us. This wrong mixture of clay, making us who we are and we can't share it. We don't know all our elements and we don't know how to speak up for what we do understand about ourselves because you don't explain yourself. You just are. But I don't understand what I am. And I hear the mixture of lies, truths and all the in between from eight other minds... and I feel more alone. 

Alone because they are alone. We all have our own mud, our own clay and none of us is a final mold. None of us are close, all of us are seeking. And I don't think we have any guidance. 

Book seeks it in his Symbol, his books of myths of a son who died because the rain and the mud weren't able to mix and we came out broken. Broken from the start and now more broken as things take away light... 

Kaylee's lights dwindles, imperceptible to most but I see her changing, her light going from blinding to gold. It will be golden someday, but it will still be beautiful won't it? She seeks answers from all of us, from our smiles, from our minds. Asks questions, keeps her own thoughts. She tells the most truth of us all and that makes her mud a favorite, but even Kaylee doesn't have words and even Kaylee doesn't know and even Kaylee's past has harshness. 

Inara seeks connections. Connections with strangers, connections with us, she clings to Kaylee more than she knows. Much like me in awe of her mud but she also searches for hope in Mal. Mal who stopped believing in hope though hope is strong in the clay that makes him. 

Mal who finds guidance from nothing but his past says he once believed in myths like Book's. Mal who believes in the Black and lies to himself about his belief in people. He has faith in the people around him though, is burned if they disappoint it. Is afraid of that fire, shooting down and killing him violently. Pushes away and holds us close. He's almost as broken as me. Has so many shattered pieces that will never dissolve into his mud and all this happiness and good from a past he wants to forget. Tries to shove it away, like trash, dilute with pain and pragmaticism until it holds no power. It will remain strong, though, I feel it from him and it reminds me of the strength Simon gives me. 

My faith is my brother. Is faith is me. It was and shall always be. We fit, we are one, we are blood and more. If blood was all our parents wouldn't have failed us, wouldn't have put reputation and money above our minds, our hearts, our love of people and beauty. Music for me, humanity for Simon. His empathy and my lust, we make a whole soul. We link and we are family. But I hurt him. I shattered him when I fell victim to my thirst to learn more, to escape our parents ignoring eyes and stand on my own. I left for independence and another place besides my brother's eyes to belong. And I lost it all and became even more broken...Simon became more broken too. Because his flesh and my flesh, our being it comes from the same core. And though I help keep him afloat and from caving to the despair that thickens his mud, he keeps the real girl within me alive and that makes me need him more than he needs me. He doesn't know but I do. 

Wash finds hope in Zo, her skin, her smile, her whispers in his ear, the way they laugh and the way they link. He wants to create a symbol of that hope and belief in her, and them. But he's frightened too. Of Mal, of Jayne, of Me. Of the nothing he flies. Of himself. Zo wants that symbol too, isn't fearful of him, or Mal, or Jayne or even me. Believes she and Wash will create a wonder. A wonder to live for... She fears losing reasons to live for, fears Wash or Mal dying and the danger of things. But she loves the exhilaration. She looks to Wash and the need to create their symbol to give her reasons to stay sharp. Zo runs from dullness but doesn't understand, there isn't anything dull about her. 

Jayne is in transition. He just survived, he didn't question and he knew what to fear in the black. Space-crazies, Reavers, Alliance, anyone as greedy as himself. He's gotten attached, he cares, he loves... and he denies and denies. He gets cruder but he watches my brother, he gets meaner but he watches my back whenever I'm let off ship. He is the least broken but he is the most new. 

Wash and Zo speak only to each other, Wash never explaining his fear right, Zo unaware it's dullness that haunts her, so it never reaches her words. Kaylee smiles and no one knows, usually herself included, that she is dimming. Inara isn't sure what she lacks, why she's more and more discouraged everyday and she lashes out at Mal but never about the truth of her soul. Book reads and Jayne fights thinking. Simon looks at my brain and uses his. It's only Mal and I who know. Know our clay is cracked, know our souls are broken. Know that all of us are searching and not saying what's real. Only Mal, he'd never admit to knowing because he likes his cracks and he is proud. 

I wonder if I could learn to like my cracks? Could I learn to like seeing past the guises the rest of the world can't see? 

#### If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to writingpathways


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